Now the next step. In the first tutorial you learned about the way the drawing area is set up, the basics of drawings and how to draw a line. In this tutorial we will go on to discover a number of other functions that AutoCAD provides.

Step #1

Starting with the drawing file that you started in the first tutorial (or the file that you downloaded above), it's time to start learning more basic drawing functions. Since my background is in Architecture and Engineering that's what we're going to draw. So far you have a rectangle 3'-0"x7'-0" as shown above. The next function that you're going to learn is the "track" command along with the "circle" command. Say we want to place a circle 3'-4" up the rectangle and 4" inside the rectangle. You can see the location of where we want the circle to be by the "+" as shown below.

So let's start the circle command. Type "c" at the command prompt and hit enter, this starts the circle command. Now a subroutine to the circle command , as well as when you create any type of entity, you can start the "tracking" command. To start this subroutine type in "track" and the command prompt and hit enter. Now select the bottom right corner using the end point as the starting point. Now drag your mouse to the left and type in 4" at the command line. Now drag your mouse up and type in 3'3" at the command prompt. Now hit enter to end the tracking subroutine and continue with the circle routine. So you should see something similar to the image below.

Now you have to specify the radius of the circle that you want to draw. For this circle let's make it 1.5". There are 3 ways that you can enter this information, your can type 1.5", 1.5 or 1-1/2. When you're working in architectural units if you don't specify that it is an inch or a foot AutoCAD assumes it to be inches that you're inputting. So let's input the radius of the circle as 1.5". Now that you have your circle drawn you should have something like the image below.

Step #2

Now that we have most of a door we might as well finish it. The next command to learn is the "offset" command. Generally the trim around a door is approximately 2", so guess what our offset is going to be! That's right, 2". So to start the "offset" command type in "o" at the command prompt. The first thing that AutoCAD requests is a distance that you want to offset the objects. So in our case since we want a 2" trim around the door, our offset distance is going to be 2". Once you enter the offset distance the next thing that AutoCAD asks for is the object that you want to offset. Select the right hand side of the door. After selecting the object you want to specify the side that you want to offset to object to. In this case we want to offset the line away from the center of the door, as shown in the image below.

Do this same procedure to the top and other side of the door. Now you should have something like the image below.

Now we want to connect the lines so that we have a nice clean image of a door.

Step #3

To clean this up we are going to use a command called "fillet". To start this command type in "f" at the command prompt and hit enter. You're now prompted to select a radius that you want to fillet 2 lines at. In this case we just want to fillet them to a point rather than to a radius. To do this we will select 0 for the radius. Once you insert 0 as your radius AutoCAD will prompt you to select a first line that you want to fillet, select the bottom line of the door. Now AutoCAD will prompt you for a second line for the fillet command. Select the line to the far right that represents the door trim. After selecting these 2 lines you should have something like the image below.

To wrap up this tutorial do this same procedure for the remaining 3 corners of the door so that you finish with the image below.

If you have any questions about this tutorial please feel free to email me and I will answer any questions that you may have. If you found this tutorial useful let us know, show your support and join our CAD Corner Forum where you can get more and more information for experience AutoCAD users.